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Literature of the American West 1/e
Greg Lyons
Published September 2002 by Longman
Copyright 2003, 496 pp., Paper
ISBN: 0-205-32461-4
List Price:
$32.40
Inventory Status:
In-Stock
   
Summary

Literature of the American West is an anthology of "literary" and popular fiction; historical personal narratives; contemporary reflective essays; author biographies, and critical perspectives on the images, literatures, and films of the American West. KEY TOPICS: This distinctive book will enliven and deepen readers' understanding and appreciation of the literature, values, ideals, and perceptions of the American West. The book moves beyond the traditional literary canon to incorporate pop culture, historical, multi-ethnic, and multi-media approaches. Included are stories from popular Western authors such as Zane Grey and Dorothy Johnson, as well as Native American authors such as N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko. This book also includes critical reading questions, writing suggestions, and relevant photographs and paintings that facilitate analyzing the works within the book as well as our own perceptions of the American West. MARKET: For those interested the study and appreciation of the literature of the American West.

Features

  • Thematic approach. The text is divided into eight chapters that provide an historical framework, allowing students to discern the progressions, undercurrents, and themes in western American literature that they may otherwise overlook.
  • Chapter introductions. Each chapter has a comprehensive introduction that details historical and cultural context, giving students a thorough grounding in the events that made Western myths and stories significant.
  • Author headnotes. Brief biographies of each author offer the details of the author's life, the time period in which he/she lived, and the influences and themes of his/her writing. The headnotes are designed to increase students' interest in the reading and to improve their understanding of stories as situated in history.
  • Critical reading and interpretive discussion questions. After each reading selection, discussion questions are provided to guide students through the careful consideration of characterization, authors' styles, generic conventions, analysis of themes, comparisons among stories and authors, and revisionist readings of Western myths.
  • “Focus on Film.” This unique end-of-chapter feature offers tips for viewing a western feature film related to the theme of the chapter, connects selections to popular culture and the media, stimulates visual literacy, and encourages comparisons between cinematic and literary traditions of the western.
  • “Topics for Research and Writing.” After each chapter, the text presents topics for research and writing, intended to guide students in writing formal essays, as well as introduce them to both primary and secondary materials about the Americann West, particularly visual resources on the Internet. These topics can provide suggestions for individual written homework assignments and for collaborative projects using Internet resources.
  • Photographs and images. More than twenty photographs of promotional illustrations, landscape paintings, and Native American portraits enrich students' understanding of western ideals; stimulate connections among history, popular culture, and literature; provide an occasion for visual learning; and illustrate the textual materials through an alternative medium.
Table of Contents

All chapters begin with an Introduction and conclude with Topics for Research and Writing.

Introduction.

I. FOUNDATIONS FOR A WESTERN MYTHOLOGY.

1. Mapping the Terrain.

Emmanuel Leutze, Across the Continent, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1861).

Hector St. John (DeCrevecoeur), What Is an American? from Letters of an American Farmer (1782).

Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893).

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, from The Journals (1806/1905).

Bret Harte, The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1870).

Focus on Film: John Ford (director), Stagecoach (1939).

2. Crossing Frontiers.

George Catlin, Buffalo Bull's Backfat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe (1832).

Lewis Garrard, The Village from Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail (1850).

Karl Bodmer, Bison Dance of the Mandan Indians (1836).

Edward Ellis, from Seth Jones; or, The Captives of the Frontier (1860).

George Caleb Bingham, The Concealed Enemy (1845).

Oliver La Farge, The Young Warrior (1938).

A. B. Guthrie, Mountain Medicine (1947).

William Tylee Ranney, Advice on the Prairie (1853).

Focus on Film: Elliot Silverstein (director), A Man Called Horse (1970).

3. Working the Land.

N. C. Wyeth, Rounding Up (1904).

Owen Wister, The Jimmyjohn Boss (1900).

Charles Schryvogel, The Summit Springs Rescue (1869).

Frederic Remington, A Dash for the Timber (1889).

Cassily Adams and Otto Becker, Custer's Last Fight (1896).

Willa Cather, El Dorado: A Kansas Recessional (1901).

Charley Russell, Smoke of a .45 (1908).

Zane Grey, The Ranger (1927).

Focus on Film: Howard Hawks (director), Red River (1948).

4. Spiritual Landscapes.

Asher Durand, Kindred Spirits (1849).

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Mountains (1868).

John Muir, from My First Summer in the Sierra (1869/1911).

Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872).

Gilber Munger, Eocene Bluffs, Green River, Wyoming (1878).

Edward S. Curtis, Canon de Chelly-Navaho (1904).

Georgia O'Keefe, Mule's Skull with Pink Poinsettas (1936).

Focus on Film: Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey (directors), The Wilderness Idea (1990).

II. CHALLENGES TO A WESTERN MYTHOLOGY.

5. Satires and Entertainments.

Beadle's New York Dime Library, Kit Carson (book cover 1878).

Mark Twain, from Roughing It (1872).

Great Wild West Exhibition (1883).

Stephen Crane, The Blue Hotel (1898).

Dorothy Johnson, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1949).

James Earle Fraser, The End of the Trail (1915).

Thomas Schatz, The Western from Hollywood Genres (1981).

Focus on Film: Robert Altman (director), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971).

6. Women in the West.

Angeline Mitchell Brown, from Diary of a School Teacher in the Arizona Frontier (1881/1990)

W. H. D. Koerner, Madonna of the Prairie (1922).

Mary Hunter Austin, The Fakir, and The Walking Woman from Lost Borders (1909).

Sui Sin Far, In the Land of the Free, (1909)

Linda Hassselstrom, Spring, Seasons in Dakota, and Dakota Homesteading (1992).

Evelyn Schlatter, Drag's a Life: Women, Gender, and Cross-Dressing in the Nineteenth-Century West (1997).

Focus on Film: King Vidor (director), Duel in the Sun (1946).

7. Native American Images and Voices.

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, from Life Among the Piutes (1883).

Salish Handbag (ca. 1915).

N. Scott Momaday, from The Priest of the Sun, House Made of Dawn (1968).

Ray Young Bear, Morning Talking Mother (1980), The Language of Weather (1990).

David Bradley, American Indian Gothic (1983).

Louise Erdich, Indian Boarding School: The Runaways (1984).

Diane Glancy, Black Kettle National Grasslands, Western Oklohoma (1988).

Mary Brave Bird, Civilize Them with a Stick from Lakota Woman (1990).

Diane Glories, Black Kettle National Grasslands, Western Oklahoma (1988).

Bennie Buffalo, Cheyenne in the Moon (1991).

Sherman Alexie, How to Write the Great American Indian Novel (1996).

Focus on Film: Chris Eyre (director), Smoke Signals (1998).

8. The New West.

Wakako Yamauchi, And the Soul Shall Dance (1974).

Raymond Barro, The Campesinos from the Plum, Plum Pickers (1996).

Richard Hugo, Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg and Duwamish (1984).

William Kittredge, Redneck Secrets from Owning It All (1987).

Linda Hogan, A Different Yield from Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995).

Focus on Film: John Huston (director), The Misfits (1961).
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